


All's Fair in Love and Warcraft

by Elfy (elfowlgirl)



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - World of Warcraft, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 16:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10442391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfowlgirl/pseuds/Elfy
Summary: Markus kills Xin - thankfully, in World of Warcraft, deaths are temporary. Repercussions are not.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic that I've been working on for several months... and, sadly, will likely remain unfinished. But I'll update it occasionally with what I have already, at the very least.

"Shut up," Inien grumbled over her mic, and a second later repeated herself much louder as if I, somehow, hadn't heard her. "Shut  _ up! _ "

"Y'know, I don't think I will," I mumbled between bouts of laughter. Some would have called me the 'long-suffering guildmaster of <Nine Shrines>’, but they would have learned quickly it was just as much the other way around. What can I say? I like making people smile.

"I'm taking the repair cost out of the guild bank." Her mage's corpse sat at the bottom of the elevator just outside Thunder Bluff, my own blood elf gently drifting down to land beside it on tattered purple wings. My toon - Velafi - stood beside her, and immediately started dancing. I could hear her frowning over Skype. "You know, eleven-year-olds playing on their brother's account think people falling off the elevator is funny. You're twenty-five."

"What can I say, I'm a child at heart. If only Ashe were here and could rez you."

"And rub it in my face for the hundredth time? No thanks." A bright flash of light, and her mage was living again. "It's weird having you be a shirtless blood elf instead of a robed one."

"Demon hunters were practically made for me! And it's not like I'm retiring Markus. The new demonology was  _ also  _ practically made for me. It's endless imp time."

"Why does half this guild insist on naming their toons after themselves?" The beginning of her rant was immediately interrupted as a new voice joined the call - one instantly familiar, and I knew that she was no doubt rolling her eyes when she recognized it.

"They're going at it again," Ashe informed us. "Stay out of Orgrimmar."

"They're  _ always  _ going at it. I knew we shouldn't have rolled on an RP-PVP server, but nooo - "

"Look, you got RP. I got PVP. Everyone's happy," Inien retorted. "You guys've even made a couple friends here."

"Gregor has," I corrected. "And no matter what he says, I'm not inviting Zalvetta to the guild. He creeps me out."

"He plays a pandaren - "

" _ He is a furry ball of blood and death and you know it. _ " I cut off Ashe's response with one of my own, a reply so well-rehearsed it's become oddly endearing. To me, at least, though judging by the quiet snort Ashe tried and failed to hide, she probably thought so, too.

"You say that just because he keeps beating you in duels," Inien remarked dryly.

I grumbled wordlessly. "In Orgrimmar, you say?"

"Yeah. Why, gonna help out with spectral sight?"

"I might as well," I shrugged, even though I knew she couldn't see me. "I wanna watch the carnage. Last time Xin camped Zeke's corpse for almost an hour."

"And the time before that, they crashed the server," Ashe added.

"And the time before  _ that _ , they crashed it so badly it was down for twenty minutes and had to rollback an hour," Inien grumbled. "I had to redo half my dailies. I never do my dailies and  _ that shit's exactly why! _ "

“Well, if it rolls back, your death won’t matter too much, will it?” I smirked.

“What death?” Ashe asked, curious, though Inien pointedly kept silent.

My demon hunter - sporting a similar blond mop of hair to my own - hearthed, expertly darting through the Shrine (is it of Two Moons? I never remember which is which) before I clicked the portal to Orgrimmar. It was quicker than the Dalaran hearthstone half the time, anyway.

Sure enough, when I arrived, the city was in turmoil. If World of Warcraft had it that when a faction raided a capital it lit on fire, Orgrimmar would be a smoking crater. Hell, my computer lagged for an instant as the in-game chat filled with a good dozen or so /emotes. I'd have to talk to Kyr about that later.

Most if not all the players I saw - save the occasional lowbie lying dead in the pavement - were bearing one of four distinct nameplates, recognizable at a glance. There had to be over a hundred of them if not twice that.

<Banished Spirits>; <Lily of the Valley>; <Gold and Honor>; and finally <Hit Valor Cap>, the guild with its name now outdated and its stubborn guildmaster who insisted it would be changed under no circumstances.

The four largest guilds on the server who seemed content to wreck the capitals on a weekly if not daily basis and went around generally being a nuisance. I couldn’t help but complain, even if it was just a little bit fun to watch.

<Banished Spirits>, based Alliance-side, went all-out with strategic attacks, planned well in advance and with the goal of causing the most inconvenience possible. The Horde-side guilds - that is, everyone else - tended to just charge in, their numbers a tidal wave as they descended on their foes in a flurry of polygons and spell effects.

The call had gone oddly silent, though neither of my guildmates put their mics on mute. The sudden whirring of a fan indicated that Ashe, despite her own warning, had teleported to Orgrimmar, too, and if I knew Inien she had followed as well, eager to watch the turmoil.

I hit spectral sight and scanned the city, though it was admittedly difficult to make out any hidden rogues amidst the sudden sea of hostile red silhouettes. Despite it all, my gaze suddenly caught  _ something  _ \- I realized it was a feral druid, prowling about and carefully avoiding the surges of AoEs. I hit metamorphosis, aiming for them before I even registered their name.

As they became visible it seemed almost at once that everyone else was targeting them, too, even as they began to strike back at me. Even though it felt more like I was button smashing than following a rotation, their health eventually dropped to zero - my toon's health followed a second later, a different, night elf demon hunter delivering the killing blow. Still, I saw the name of the one I had defeated, and my eyes widened in surprise.

"Huh." I said aloud, and a moment passed before either Inien or Ashe remarked.

"What?" Ashe asked.

The corpse that lay beside mine: Xin the Beloved, <Banished Spirits>.

"Oh, nothing."

\---

There were at least a dozen rumors telling of the original demolition of the alliance - ha! - between the four guilds that had once dominated our server. Many years ago, back when I had played fairly casually and RP wasn't a thing I quite understood the entertainment value of, our server had been almost entirely Alliance players. ...Okay, it was right before Mists dropped, but Ashe and Kyr joined during Mists and after the endless Siege of Orgrimmar and entirety of Warlords of Draenor it certainly felt longer ago than it was.

Four guilds, for whatever reason, came to flourish more so than the rest, each dedicated to a different...  _ nuance  _ of roleplay, different flavor, and different characters.

The head of <Copper For Your Thoughts> had been a worgen warrior, and he ran what was closer to a Yakuza or Mafia bracket than anything. If you were in his guild, you probably knew how to play the Auction House to decent effect or, at the very least, your character was a mercenary of some kind. Nowadays in <Gold and Honor>, Dao's a stalwart orc warrior, whatever weapon he's wielding  _ always  _ transmogged to Gorehowl. Always. The people of his guild seem more warrior-esque on the outside, but make no mistake - they'll do  _ anything  _ you ask for a couple gold. Trust me, I've checked.

<Blood-Stained Rust> and <Hit Valor Cap> were identical guilds in everything but faction. Kyrlos went from a draenei hunter to a tauren hunter, cheerfully dismissing all his pets as soon as the new marksmanship was announced. He roleplayed only occasionally, especially when the opportunity came up in character to one-up Zeke, but other than that most of his guild was fairly heavy PVP oriented. Likewise, they were also the most soldier-ish, and as much of a goofball Kyrlos seemed, he certainly knew how to turn the tide of a fight.

<Sakura Blossoms> was as flowery a guild as its name was. There, people roleplayed characters otherwise shunned by the rest of the server, most of it consisting of dragons-in-disguise or masters of their art in... whatever their art may be, be it magic or combat or whatever else they could think of. A proud night elf warrior lead the charge, wielding not just a simple sword but a katana, who stood in Stormwind Park - and then the Mage District, after the Cataclysm - reflecting on the nature of Azeroth itself. <Lily of the Valley> now boasted more than half its members as pandaren or monks or both, including its head, who seemed to revel in the existence of the land of Pandaria. Zeke was annoyed at having to trade swords for fist weapons come Legion - I couldn't blame him, I knew Thog felt the same way about losing his daggers - and even though he had been told a dozen times that rogue was probably the class for him, he just didn't seem to listen.

Then, there was <Banished Spirits>.

Once they had been <Oath to Elune>, changing their name as if to prove a point post-falling out. Inien had openly called them 'roleplaying purists' in the past - despite having been friends with Zeke and <Sakura Blossoms>, if you were in their guild, you stuck to the lore. Everything wasn’t so much simply accurate as  _ adherent _ , with no one more special than anyone else. A majority of them were priests or rogues or shaman or druids, and any race that played them. Night elf mages were banned last I heard, a statement that had made our own resident mage bristle.

Xin was a night elf druid and always had been, both in character and out of character leader despite the equality he forced upon his guildmates. I think once he had been resto/balance but now he played every spec, not giving a damn about balancing gear and yet still keeping everything perfectly transmogged. He was, as far as I gathered, a total, hypocritical ass, pompous without a doubt, and somehow amassing a staggering following.

Despite it all, when the fallout came, everyone else were the ones to leave, as though they had only been playing Alliance for Xin in the first place. The bustling streets of Stormwind diminished considerably, and the once-abandoned paths of Orgrimmar began to burst with dozens of faction-transferred toons or lowbie characters freshly rolled to save irl money. The change happened almost overnight, or so it went.

The server that had once been more RP than PVP if only because there was almost no foes to speak of became a virtual battlefield.


End file.
